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The Temporal Pattern to the Experience of Regret

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Thomas Gilovich at Cornell University
Thomas Gilovich
Victoria Husted Medvec at Northwestern University
Victoria Husted Medvec
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Abstract

Through telephone surveys, written questionnaires, and face-to-face interviews, it was found that people's biggest regrets tend to involve things they have failed to do in their lives. This conflicts with research on counterfactual thinking that indicates that people regret unfortunate outcomes that stem from actions taken more than identical outcomes that result from actions foregone. These divergent findings were reconciled by demonstrating that people's regrets follow a systematic time course: Actions cause more pain in the short-term, but inactions are regretted more in the long run. Support for this contention was obtained in 2 scenario experiments that assessed people's beliefs about the short- and long-term regrets of others and in an experiment that asked Ss about their own regrets of action and inaction from 2 time periods. Several mechanisms that can account for this temporal pattern are discussed.
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ATTITUDES AND SOCIAL COGNITION
The Temporal Pattern to the Experience of Regret
Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Husted Medvec
Through telephone surveys, written questionnaires, and face-to-face interviews, it was found that
people's biggest regrets tend to involve things they have failed to do in their lives. This conflicts with
research on counterfactual thinking that indicates that people regret unfortunate outcomes that
stem from actions taken more than identical outcomes that result from actions foregone. These
divergent findings were reconciled by demonstrating that people's regrets follow a systematic time
course: Actions cause more pain in the short-term, but inactions are regretted more in the long run.
Support for this contention was obtained in 2 scenario experiments that assessed people's beliefs
about the short- and long-term regrets of others and in an experiment that asked Ss about their own
regrets of action and inaction from 2 time periods. Several mechanisms that can account for this
temporal pattern are discussed.
Regrets are like taxes: Nearly everyone must suffer them. In
today's world in which people arguably exercise more choice
than ever before in human history, it is exceedingly difficult to
choose so consistently well that regret is avoided entirely. How-
then can people keep their regrets to a minimum? What courses
of action or inaction should be avoided in order to ward off the
experience of regret? In other words, what is it that people tend
to regret most in their lives?
Until recently (Houston, Sherman, & Baker, 1991; Kahne-
man & Tversky, 1982b; Kinnier & Metha, 1989; Landman,
1993;
Metha, Kinnier, & McWhirter, 1989) little was known
about the determinants of regret. Most research on the subject
dealt not with the questions of when and why regret is experi-
enced, but with how the anticipation of future regret affects cur-
rent choices (Bell, 1981; Loomes & Sugden, 1982). Recently,
however, research on the subject of counterfactual thinking
(Kahneman & Tversky, 1982b; Miller, Turnbull, & McFarland,
1990) has shed some light on the issue of what people regret
most in their lives and why. Numerous studies seem to show
that people experience more regret over negative outcomes that
stem from actions taken than from identical outcomes that re-
sult from actions foregone (Gleicher et al., 1990; Kahneman &
Tversky, 1982a; Landman, 1987). Perhaps the clearest illustra-
tion of this tendency comes from an oft-cited scenario experi-
ment by Kahneman and Tversky (1982a):
Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Husted Medvec, Department of Psy-
chology, Cornell University.
This research was supported by Research Grant MH45531 from the
National Institute of Mental Health to Thomas Gilovich. We thank Kir-
sten Blau, Dorie Katzer, Jennifer Lowe, Marshall Schacht, Sarah Sirlin,
and Robii,1 Winitsky for serving as coders and experimenters and Den-
nis Regan for commenting on a draft of the article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Thomas G'-ilovich, Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Uris
Hall, Ithac a. New York 14853-7601.
Mr. Paul owns shares in company A. During the past year he con-
sidered switching to stock in company B, but he decided against it.
He now finds out that he would have been better ofl'by $ 1,200 if he
had switched to the stock of company B. Mr. George owned shares
in company B. During the past year he switched to stock in com-
pany A. He now finds that he would have been better offby $ 1,200
if he had kept his stock in company B.
Who feels greater regret? (p. 173)
A rather stunning 92% of the respondents thought that Mr.
George, whose misfortune stems from an action taken, would
experience more regret. The intuitions revealed in this and
other studies (Gleicher et al., 1990; Landman, 1987; see also
Spranca, Minsk, & Baron, 1991) are extremely powerful and
reliable. Because "it is usually easier to imagine oneself abstain-
ing from actions that one has carried out than carrying out ac-
tions that were not in fact performed" (Kahneman & Miller,
1986,
p. 145), the person who takes an action seems more likely
to be tortured by thoughts of what might have been than the
person who failed to act. Taking an action that leads to an un-
fortunate event is more likely to produce a sense that "I brought
this on
myself"
or "this need not have happened."
However, as powerful and intuitively appealing as these re-
sults are, they conflict—at least on the surface—with an obser-
vation from everyday life. When people are asked to describe
their biggest regrets in life, it seems that they most often cite
things they failed to do. "I wish I had been more serious in col-
lege."
"I regret that
1
never pursued my interest in dance." "I
should have spent more time with my children." As troubling
as regrettable actions might be initially, when people look back
on their lives it seems to be their regrettable failures to act that
stand out and cause the most
grief.
This apparent conflict between the findings of laboratory re-
search and the lessons of everyday life could stem from either of
two sources. First, either element of this conflict may simply be
incorrect and misleading. Scenario experiments like the one
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1994. Vol. 67. No. 3, 357-365
Copyright 1994 by the American Psychological Association. Inc. 0022-3514/94/$3.(K)
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